General conditions for criminal liability
Note 1
Persons subject to criminal liability are a category of persons that fall under the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation and are required to bear responsibility for crimes committed. The general conditions for the onset of criminal liability are prescribed in the Criminal Code in Art. 19.
The subject of a crime can be any sane individual who committed a crime at the age prescribed by the Criminal Code. Any sane individual of a certain category can become a special subject of a crime.
Individuals who are sane and have reached the age of 16 at the time of committing a crime are brought to criminal liability. When committing a particularly serious crime, liability may begin at the age of 14.
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Crimes for which criminal liability begins at the age of 14:
- murder, intentional infliction of grievous or moderate harm to health, kidnapping (Articles 105, 111, 112, 126);
- rape and sexual assault (Articles 131, 132);
- theft, robbery, robbery, extortion (Articles 158, 161, 162, 163);
- unlawful taking of a vehicle, a car without the purpose of theft, theft of a water or air transport vessel, railway rolling stock, rendering of communications routes or vehicles unusable (Articles 166, 211, 267);
- intentional damage or destruction of property under aggravating circumstances (Article 167);
- a terrorist act, training to commit terrorist activities, participation in a terrorist community or related activities, an act of international terrorism (Articles 205, 361);
- failure to report a crime (Article 205.6);
- taking a hostage, providing knowingly false reports and information about an act of terrorism, participation in mass riots (Articles 206, 207, 212);
- participation in illegal armed groups (Article 208);
- aggravated hooliganism, vandalism (Articles 213, 214);
- illegal acquisition, sale, transfer, transportation, storage, carrying or manufacturing of explosive devices or explosives (Articles 222.1, 223.1);
- extortion or theft of ammunition, weapons, explosive devices, explosives (Article 226);
- extortion or theft of psychotropic substances or narcotic drugs (Article 229);
- encroachment on the life of a public or government figure (Article 277);
- attack on institutions or persons under international protection (Article 360).
Finished works on a similar topic
Course work Persons subject to criminal liability under the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation 420 ₽ Abstract Persons subject to criminal liability under the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation 260 ₽ Test work Persons subject to criminal liability under the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation 220 ₽
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If a minor has reached the age stipulated by criminal law, but as a result of mental retardation, which is not associated with a mental disorder, when committing a socially dangerous act, he could not fully understand the actual nature of the social danger of his actions, he is not subject to criminal liability.
Chapter 4. PERSONS SUBJECT TO CRIMINAL LIABILITY
Article 19. General conditions of criminal liability
Commentary on Article 19
1. Russian criminal legislation provides for the general conditions of criminal liability necessary to recognize a person as the subject of a crime. The subject of a crime can only be a person who is capable of realizing his actions, directing them, and also bearing legal responsibility for their commission. Individuals include citizens of the Russian Federation, stateless persons, as well as foreign citizens. The specifics of bringing foreign citizens to criminal liability are given in the comments to Art. Art. 11 and 12 of the Criminal Code. According to the criminal law of the Russian Federation, legal entities are not recognized as subjects of a crime.
2. Sanity means such a mental state of a person in which his intellect and will allow him to control his behavior and realize not only the illegality of the act being committed at the time of its commission, but also the ability to bear criminal liability in connection with this. The number of sane persons also includes persons who have some deviations in mental health (anomalies in the psyche), but do not deprive them of the ability to realize the social danger and the illegality of the acts they commit. At the same time, the criminal law gives the court the right to take this circumstance into account when sentencing a person or to use this condition of the subject as a legal basis for prescribing compulsory medical measures (see commentary to Article 97 of the Criminal Code).
3. An important condition is the age of criminal responsibility, failure to reach which allows us to say that there are no legal grounds for bringing a person to criminal responsibility. The Criminal Code of the Russian Federation has defined two types of age: general and reduced. The general age of criminal responsibility is 16 years, and for some crimes, the list of which is exhaustive, responsibility begins at the age of 14 (see commentary to Article 20 of the Criminal Code).
Article 20. Age at which criminal liability begins
Commentary on Article 20
1. As a general rule, for the commission of most crimes, criminal liability begins when a person reaches the age of 16 years. Only for some criminal acts, the social danger of which is significant, criminal liability begins upon reaching the age of 14 years. The list of these crimes is set out in Part 2 of Art. 20 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation and is exhaustive.
2. To bring a person to criminal liability, it is necessary to accurately determine his age (day, month, year of birth). This issue is resolved on the basis of relevant documents (birth certificate, passport, etc.). Age is determined not by the beginning of the birthday, but by its end, i.e. a person is considered to have reached the age at which criminal liability begins, not on his birthday, but after the expiration of the day on which this day falls, i.e. from zero hours of the next day. In the absence of documents certifying the date of birth, the age is established in the process of conducting a forensic medical examination. In this case, the subject’s birthday should be considered the last day of the year named by the experts, and when determining the age of the minimum and maximum number of years, the court should proceed from the minimum age of such a person assumed by the experts. This procedure for establishing the age of a person who has committed an act prohibited by criminal law is defined in Resolution of the Plenum of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation dated 01.02.2011 N 1 “On the judicial practice of applying legislation regulating the specifics of criminal liability and punishment of minors.”
3. Having provided for the onset of criminal liability for minors from the age of 16, and for some crimes from the age of 14, the law gives the court the right to release such a person from criminal liability in the case of committing a crime of minor or moderate gravity for the first time, if correction can be achieved through the use of compulsory educational measures ( see commentary to Article 90 of the Criminal Code). When imposing a sentence on a minor who has committed a crime of minor or moderate gravity, criminal penalties may be replaced by compulsory educational measures (see commentary to Article 92 of the Criminal Code).
4. In some cases, the rules of so-called age-related insanity apply to minors. We are talking about socially and educationally neglected teenagers, those who have mental retardation, but not due to a mental disorder. In such cases, it is necessary to order an examination of the subject’s mental state with the involvement of specialists in child and youth psychology and pedagogy. If the conclusion of a special psychological and pedagogical examination establishes that a minor, for the above reasons, could not fully possess intellect and will, then he is not subject to criminal liability.
5. In certain cases established by criminal law and in some cases by other federal laws, a special subject of the crime is subject to liability. We are talking about additional characteristics of a subject that the legislator gives him (by gender, age, profession, position).
Article 21. Insanity
Commentary on Article 21
1. The state of insanity means a special mental state of a person that characterizes his intellect and will during the commission of a socially dangerous act recognized as a crime. The terms “insanity” and “sanity” refer to legal concepts and characterize the subject, his ability or inability to bear criminal responsibility. Therefore, when determining sanity or insanity, law enforcement officers must analyze not questions related to the subjective side, but establish data about the identity of the subject, his condition and behavior during (at the moment) of the commission of a criminal act (see: BVS RF. 2000. N 11. C . 14).
2. In accordance with Art. 21 of the Criminal Code, the state of insanity is determined by two criteria. One of them is the presence of a painful mental state in a person, which is usually called a medical (or biological) criterion. The second criterion means that a person does not have the ability to recognize the meaning of his actions or to control them. This criterion is called legal (psychological). To declare a person insane, both criteria must be established. The medical basis for making such a decision is the conclusion of a forensic psychiatric examination, but in the end only the court recognizes a person as insane (see: BVS RF. 2003. No. 4).
3. Medical criterion of insanity in Art. 21 of the Criminal Code is a generalized list of mental disorders, including four types: 1) chronic mental disorder; 2) temporary mental disorder; 3) dementia; 4) another painful mental state. From the content of the medical criterion it follows that non-painful mental disorders should not exclude sanity. A chronic mental disorder should be understood as a group of diseases that are long-term, intractable and progressive (schizophrenia, epilepsy, progressive paralysis, manic-depressive psychosis, presenile and senile psychoses, etc.). Temporary mental disorders include mental illnesses that develop quickly, last a short time and end with complete recovery. Dementia is a painful mental state that is characterized by inferiority of mental activity. Doctors distinguish oligophrenia (congenital dementia) and its three forms: mild (debility), moderate (imbecility) and severe (idiocy). Acquired dementia (dementia) is a painful condition characterized by a decrease or complete absence of mental activity and associated, as a rule, with the disease that caused it. Another painful mental state is a disorder of mental activity of a painful nature, which does not fall under the symptoms of the three categories mentioned above. This may include the most severe forms of psychopathy, mental anomalies in the deaf and mute, the consequences of traumatic brain injury (traumatic encephalopathy), etc. Any of the listed diseases or mental deficiencies individually may be sufficient to declare a person insane from the point of view of the medical criterion of insanity. In general, the modern formulation of the medical criterion of insanity covers essentially all possible variants of mental pathology.
4. The legal (psychological) criterion of insanity is characterized by two signs: intellectual (inability to realize the meaning of one’s actions) and volitional (inability to control one’s actions). To declare a person insane from the point of view of the criterion under consideration, one of these signs is sufficient.
An intellectual sign indicates that the person who committed this or that action (or inaction) is not able to understand the factual circumstances of the act or cannot realize its social significance.
A volitional sign of insanity consists in a person’s lack of ability to control his actions. This is an independent sign, which, even in the absence of an intellectual sign, may indicate the presence of insanity. For this reason, the law separates these two characteristics with the conjunction “or”. A person who has committed a socially dangerous act, under a certain state of mind, may, while committing such an act, retain the ability to formally assess events and understand them, but at the same time lack the ability to direct his actions. In such cases, the presence of a legal criterion of insanity can be judged on the basis of one volitional sign. On the other hand, the inability to realize one’s actions (an intellectual sign) always indicates an inability to direct these actions and, therefore, the presence of a legal (psychological) criterion of insanity.
5. By a court decision, a person declared insane may be subject to compulsory medical measures. This means that under certain circumstances of a socially dangerous act and information about the personality of an insane person, the mentioned measures may not be applied (see commentary to Articles 97 - 104 of the Criminal Code). The decision to apply these measures depends on the nature and degree of public danger of a socially dangerous act committed by an insane person, provided for by criminal law.
Article 22. Criminal liability of persons with a mental disorder that does not exclude sanity
Commentary on Article 22
1. This article deals with criminal liability and punishment of persons who have committed a crime but suffer from mental abnormalities. Modern legislation in most foreign countries recognizes the concept of diminished responsibility. Russian legal science rightly notes that persons with mental retardation cannot be equated with mentally healthy persons in the field of criminal liability. Such disorders in the legal literature include psychopathy, residual effects of traumatic brain injuries, organic diseases of the central nervous system, mental retardation with mild debility, etc.
2. The provisions of this article allow us to state the following. The law does not recognize an intermediate state between sanity and insanity, and a person who, at the time of committing a crime, could not fully understand the actual nature and social danger of his actions (inaction) or control them, is recognized as sane and subject to criminal liability. The presence of mental abnormalities in the perpetrator, which do not exclude sanity, must be taken into account by the court when assigning punishment. At the same time, the wording of Art. 22 of the Criminal Code “taken into account by the court” does not mean mitigation or enhancement of punishment. In such cases, the court must be guided by the general list of types of punishments specified in Art. 44 of the Criminal Code. An individual approach in this case can only be expressed in the chosen measure of punishment, and in some cases it can serve as the basis for the use of compulsory medical measures, which can be applied by the court even in the case when the need to use these measures arises during the preliminary investigation (see: Determination of the Judicial Collegium of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation dated December 26, 1994 // BVS RF. 1995. No. 8. P. 8).
3. The medical criterion of diminished responsibility is established based on the conclusion of a psychiatric examination. After establishing a mental disorder in a sane person, the investigator and the court must find out the degree of influence of this disorder on his behavior when committing a crime, relying on the conclusion of a forensic psychiatric examination and on the case materials collected during the preliminary investigation and at the court hearing.
4. Only the court, taking into account the conclusion of the forensic psychiatric examination, has the right to recognize the person as less than sane and, taking into account this circumstance noted in the verdict, impose a punishment.
Article 23. Criminal liability of persons who committed a crime while intoxicated
Commentary on Article 23
1. The question of the responsibility of persons who commit socially dangerous acts while intoxicated is associated with the problem of sanity - insanity. Alcohol, affecting the central nervous system of a person, affects his consciousness and will. Drunkenness contributes to the manifestation of antisocial views and habits. Some persons who have committed crimes while intoxicated quite often refer to the fact that they did not realize the significance of their actions, could not control them, and do not remember anything about what happened to them.
2. According to the law, intoxication is not a basis for exemption from criminal liability. The state of ordinary alcoholic intoxication differs from painful mental states that influence the recognition of a person as insane in two important circumstances. A person brings himself into a state of intoxication consciously, intentionally. Ordinary alcohol intoxication does not cause disturbances in mental activity and is not a painful mental state.
3. When intoxicated, as a rule, there is no legal criterion for insanity. Even in a severe degree of intoxication, disruption of mental processes does not lead to the complete elimination of control of consciousness and the ability to direct one’s actions. Senselessness, illogicality of actions, lack of visible motives, insignificance or complete absence of a reason for a crime, unjustified cruelty or extreme cynicism are not indicators of this criterion. In these cases, the person does not lose touch with the reality of what is happening, is aware of his actions and is able to correct them.
4. In some cases, the question arises that intoxication may indicate a person’s loss of the intellectual or volitional aspects of his behavior, which leads to his being declared insane. In the theory of criminal law, in this regard, the state of intoxication is divided into physiological and pathological.
Physiological intoxication is not a disease and does not entail permanent changes in the psyche, therefore this type of intoxication does not affect the intellect and will of the person committing the crime, and he is recognized as sane. It should be noted that physiological intoxication is considered as a circumstance that does not exclude criminal liability. It cannot be considered as a circumstance aggravating or mitigating punishment. Ordinary physiological intoxication, as a rule, occurs as a result of voluntary consumption of alcohol, drugs or other intoxicating substances, the doses of which are largely not excessive and determine the behavior of the perpetrator in a state of intoxication as a sane person.
If the subject was brought into a state of physiological intoxication against or against his will through violence or threats, the issue of criminal liability must be resolved taking into account the provisions of Art. 40 CC.
Pathological intoxication is a rare short-term mental disorder in which a person loses the ability to be aware of or control his actions. It occurs as a result of a number of predisposing factors (mental weakness, physical and mental exhaustion, prolonged exposure to a stressful situation, etc.) and the use of substances specified in the law in large quantities. Pathological intoxication is a type of temporary mental disorder that excludes sanity and criminal liability.
Due to the systematic use of intoxicating substances, independent mental illnesses not related to pathological intoxication (delirium tremens, delirium tremens, drug withdrawal, etc.) can arise and develop, which also exclude the sanity of the subject, but this requires a detailed conclusion of a psychiatric examination and a thorough judicial analysis of all the circumstances of the case.
Sanity and insanity
If the person who committed a socially dangerous act was in a state of insanity at the time of its commission, then he is not subject to criminal liability. In fact, this person could not fully understand the social danger and the nature of his own actions (inactions), or manage them as a result of the presence of a long-term or temporary chronic disorder, a painful mental state or dementia.
If a person in a state of insanity has committed a criminal offense, the court may impose compulsory medical treatment as a punishment, as provided for in the Criminal Code.
A person who is fully aware of his actions (or inactions) during a crime and could direct them is a sane person. A person who committed a crime in a state of sanity, but who, even before the sentencing, fell ill with a mental illness, if as a result of this pathology the person was not aware of his actions and, accordingly, could not direct them, is not subject to criminal punishment. By court decision, compulsory medical measures are applied to such a person. After recovery, such a person is brought to criminal liability.
If a person is found by a court to be of limited sanity, he is subject to criminal liability. Limited sanity is a state of mental disorder when the person who committed the crime could not fully understand or control his actions.
When imposing a sentence, the court may recognize a person as having limited sanity, which may also serve as a basis for imposing compulsory medical measures.
Spreading slander about veterans
Liability under Part 1 of Art. 354.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation now also penalizes the dissemination of knowingly false information about veterans of the Great Patriotic War. The penalties are becoming more severe - for committing such a crime the following is provided:
- imposition of a fine in the amount of up to 3 million rubles or in the amount of wages or other income of the convicted person for a period of up to 3 years;
- forced labor for up to 3 years with deprivation of the right to hold certain positions or engage in certain activities for up to 3 years;
- imprisonment for the same period with deprivation of the right to hold certain positions or engage in certain activities for up to 3 years.
